Healing
by Veszelyite
Summary: Healing comes in many forms. Prelude to a conversation in the Saiyuki manga, chapter 25 (or anime episode 15). One-shot. GonouxKanan.


**Healing**

A Saiyuki fic

by Veszelyite

DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Saiyuki guys, in any incarnation, or by any other name. 

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It was summer.

Gonou loved the summer. He loved it because Kanan loved the summer, and when Kanan loved something, she loved it with open arms and so unconditionally that Gonou couldn't help but love it as well. He loved the summer because it had been summer when they had first met. It had been summer when he had asked her to live with him. Summer when she had said yes, and they both knew that neither of them would have to be alone anymore. 

Here, in this memory, it was their first summer together. The weather had been cool and clear, a perfect time to be outside. Kanan had packed a picnic lunch, and they had gone to sit on a hill overlooking the village, in the cool shade of one of the tall trees.

"You're too serious, Gonou," she chided him, on that occasion. She had smiled to take the sting away from the words. Her smile had been so beautiful. "You can't be serious all the time. It's not good for you." 

Her comment had puzzled him a little, at the time. "How serious a person is doesn't have any effect on their health," he had replied, pushing his glasses up on his nose. He'd been a different person, back then. It seemed like so long ago.

"See?" she said teasingly, taking his arm, "that's exactly what I mean. You should try to enjoy things more. If you only take life at face value, you miss out on what it means to be alive."

_What it means to be alive...._

The happy memory twisted away, shredding like wet paper in the wind. Cold iron bars sprang up between him and her, and the light of the bright summer sun became blocked out by dank stone. There was no sunlight, even outside these walls, Gonou knew. For here in this place, on this cold summer's day, it had been raining.

Kanan stepped back from him, half-swallowed up by the shadows. There was a bright glitter of light in her hand, the shimmering reflection off the unsheathed blade of a knife. His knife. She had been the one to take it. That had been her choice. But that didn't change the fact that he had been the one to bring it to her.

"Good bye, Gonou." 

Crimson spattered across the stone. The iron bars of her cell bruised his chest and shoulders as he desperately threw himself against them, trying to reach out to her. But it was no use. He could only watch, completely helpless, as her lifeless body crumpled to the cold, barren floor.... 

...Gonou choked back a cry of denial, even as he tore free of the clutches of nightmare. 

Rocketing awake, he sat bolt upright, gasping for breath--only to be halted by a surge of pain from his bandaged midsection. The sudden wrench to his healing gut wound caused a gasp of a different sort, and he collapsed back onto the bedding, gritting his teeth. One heartbeat, two.... The pain subsided, allowing his breathing to ease. 

It was truly a pity that the pain in his chest wouldn't fade away so easily. 

Jolted rudely back to the present, he spared a moment to hope that his erstwhile caretaker might have stepped out to get a fresh pack of cigarettes, and thus missed all the commotion. No such luck. The red-haired man was sitting across the room at the table, a raised newspaper shielding his face. Certainly his host must have noticed the noise he'd made upon waking, but fortunately he didn't seem inclined to mention the fact. Apart from routine maintenance, and an occasional game of cards, Gojyo didn't seem inclined to take much overt interest in him at all. Gonou was grateful for that. The time and the space had been an unexpected gift, one that he'd needed very badly. 

Gonou had been staying here for three weeks now. Four, if one counted the time he'd apparently spent comatose. The first two weeks, he'd been able to sleep just fine. He'd spent most of his time sleeping, in fact, so exhausted and wrung-out by his ordeal that he'd slept the sleep of the dead--dark and empty and without dreams. But as he began to recover his strength, he'd started to dream again. He always dreamed of the past. He always dreamed of her.

...And each dream left his heart torn open and ripped into tiny shreds. 

Each time it happened, he tried desperately to salvage those scattered remains. Each time it happened, he tried to piece them back together into something that resembled a normal, functioning heart. But the tiny wreck that was all he could ever manage to reassemble could do nothing at all, only bleed and bleed and bleed. It made him wish he had died, all over again. At least that way they could have been together. 

How had things turned out this way? He'd never planned for this to happen. They hadn't had much, but it had been enough for both of them--the house, the quiet village, the nearby teaching job. He'd even begun to set some money aside, a couple of coins at a time, so that they would have something to fall back on, a buffer in bad times. In all of his planning and preparing, however, he had never envisioned a future that did not include Kanan. He had no life, no identity, of which she had not been at least half. He was lost, utterly lost without her.

His throat closed, holding back a sob. He couldn't let it go; he knew that. ...Because if he allowed himself one, others would follow. All the pent up grief and guilt that he held inside from the moment of Kanan's death would rise up and overwhelm him completely. 

Once, it had been so easy for him to keep control of his emotions, to distance himself from anything that might have the power to make him feel. His taciturny had caused others around him to avoid him, even to fear him. But that had been...before her. 

Her influence had weakened him, even as it had molded him to be a better, kinder person. In life she had taught him a joy so complete it went beyond anything in his limited experience. In death she had left him with a sorrow so profound that words had no capacity to express it. Now he could hardly contain the ravaging anguish that seethed so near the surface. He felt as if he had turned into some object of spun glass, brittle and fragile--something that one slip, one moment of careless handling, would cause to shatter into a thousand pieces.

And so he closed his eyes and continued to hold his breath, waiting for the sharp edge of grief to recede, so he could breathe again without breaking.

Having something else to think about provided a welcome distraction. It required a surprising amount of concentration, to hold one's breath. That steadied him, made him think, not for the first time, that it would be rather nice if he could just end everything that way. The idea was nice, but unfortunately not realistic. In reality, no living creature could asphyxiate by willpower alone. Survival instinct would force the lungs to work after the mind passed into unconsciousness. He knew there could be no easy escape there. ...And after that last dream, he certainly wasn't in any rush to put himself back to sleep. 

However, if self-suffocation wasn't an option, he found himself faced with a problem of a different sort. Gojyo was still sitting only a few meters away at the table, and Gonou couldn't take a breath without calling attention to the fact that he hadn't taken any others for the past minute or so. His host was far from stupid or unobservant. Although, like the noise he had ignored earlier, he might just choose not to notice.

A voice floated over the newspaper. "Keep that up and you're gonna turn blue."

Gonou couldn't help it. The comment startled him so much that he lost his concentration. Old, used up air fled his lungs, immediately replaced as he gave a reflexive gasp. Then, because of the offhand tone of the comment, or his reaction to it, or the sheer absurdity of the situation, he started to laugh. 

Once he started, he found that he couldn't stop. 

It was not quite normal laughter, no. It came out a bit harsh, a bit wild--full of sharp edges and hitched breaths that did little to mask pain that had filled him since waking. It was genuine, nonetheless. A cascade of sound that caressed his throat and rang in his ears, and almost made him feel human again. Almost. He curled up on his side on the bed, shoulders shaking uncontrollably as he tried in vain to stifle it. After several unsuccessful attempts, he just gave up and let it run its course.

Tears were forming at the corners of his eyes. Gonou raised his left hand to mask his face, while the right splayed across his bandaged stomach, as if to hold his insides in. The wound in his belly was protesting. It hurt to laugh. It really, really hurt. But it also felt good, in an odd, cathartic sort of way. It was a release of a different sort, if he couldn't allow himself to mourn.

Gojyo was giving him a very strange look over the top edge of the newspaper. "If you don't stop that pretty soon, someone's going to start thinking you're crazy."

That comment almost set Gonou off into another fit of laughter. With a supreme effort, he managed to get himself back under control. "No," he said at last, wiping at his eyes with the back of one hand, "I don't think so. Not this time."

It wasn't exactly a statement of reassurance. However, the redhead only closed the newspaper and tossed it down on the table. "I'm not a shrink or anything," he said, after a moment's pause, "but it's not good to let things build up like that, y'know?"

_You can't be serious all the time. It's not good for you._

Gonou looked down at the floor, considering. Gojyo had professed earlier that he wasn't interested in hearing about Gonou's past. But, just now, the unspoken offer was there. Before it could be withdrawn again, Gonou impulsively chose to take it. Didn't doctors say one had to purge a wound before it could be healed? Yes, it was time, he decided. He was ready to talk. _If you'll forgive me for that, Kanan. But I think you would have understood_.

Without waiting for a response, Gojyo got to his feet. "Coffee?" he said, glancing backward over his shoulder as he headed for the kitchen.

"Yes," Gonou answered softly. "Please."

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End file.
